At 11 AM on Wednesday February 1 2012, Green Party Watch started an online presidential straw poll. 31 hours later, at the time when the straw poll was scheduled to close, 1689 people had voted, each for one candidate. The results:

At approximately 6 AM on January 31 2012, the Americans Elect corporation opened its system to draft presidential candidates through clicks of support. 60 hours later at 6 PM on February 2 2012 (the same time that the Green Party straw poll was scheduled to close), Americans Elect had attracted 935 total clicks of support. Unlike the Green Party straw poll, the Americans Elect straw poll allowed one person to vote up more than one candidate, meaning that Americans Elect likely had far fewer than 935 participants over two and a half days. As of 6 pm, the top ten presidential candidates in terms of support were:

Of the top five Americans Elect vote-getters, Jon Huntsman has firmly ruled out an Americans Elect run and instead called for Republican Party “unity” behind Mitt Romney, while Barack Obama is the heavy favorite to walk away with the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Meanwhile, somewhere in the bowels of the Comedy Channel studios, the writing staff is chuckling.

For all the network and cable news shows that have treated Americans Elect staffers to repeated interviews over the past year and a half, wouldn’t a comparison of these results indicate it might be time to invite a Green Party candidate in for a visit?

About the authorJim Cook

I haven't been everywhere, but I've lived lots of places in the USA: the North, the South, the East, the West, and places in between. Every place I've been, I've seen acts large and small of kindness, callousness and disregard. Here we are. What will we do?

It seems that only jokes make it into the mainstream media when it comes to presidential politics. The announcement of Rocky Anderson, who stands head and shoulders above any of the Americans Elect candidates and the Republican candidates, was virtually ignored. Meanwhile, when a comic announced a fake run in South Carolina, that was big news. The biggest jokes of all are running for the Republican nomination. They get endless free publicity, in addition to the millions given to them by corporate interests.

The control of the mainstream media news organizations clearly constitutes one of the greatest threats to the American ideals alluded to by MLK in 1963 when he dreamed that this country would “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.” We need an in-depth study of how the major media sources, including newspapers like the New York Times, are able to censor people who attempt to mention truly strong candidates like Stein and Anderson, or who attempt to ask questions of Obama like, how do you justify assassinating people anywhere in the world without any semblance of due process of law?

I am one of six candidates on the ballot in the nation’s first Green Party presidential preference primary, in Arizona on February 28 (when there’s also a Republican primary).

Since Roseanne Barr did not file on time to get on the Arizona primary ballot, I have dropped my own ambitions and I am now supporting Roseanne for the Green Party nomination for President. I ask that any votes I get in the February 28 Green Party presidential preference primary be considered votes for Roseanne Barr and be apportioned to her when Arizona delegates to the Green Party convention in Baltimore this summer are apportioned.

I am now a “stand-in” candidate for Roseanne Barr. The use of “stand-in” candidates in American presidential primaries is an old tradition. For example, in 1964, to run in Democratic primaries against Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, President Lyndon Johnson used Wisconsin Gov. John W. Reynolds as his stand-in in the Wisconsin primary, Indiana Gov. Matthew Welsh in the Indiana primary, and Senator Daniel Brewster in the Maryland primary.

I am now being used by Roseanne Barr as her stand-in in the Arizona presidential preference primary on February 28, so I am more committed than ever to winning this election for Roseanne.

It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade, old landmarks crumble and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.